Director Andrew Marcus Discusses Hating Breitbart

In the early days of PJ Media -- back when we were still had our pajamas, but before we founded PJTV -- Andrew Marcus was our first in-house video maker, and gave me plenty of valuable advice when I first began to ever-so-tentatively dip my toes into the video pool back in 2007.

These days though, Andrew is directing on the big screen -- his new documentary, Hating Breitbart, debuts later this month -- and as Andrew explains during the interview, the keyword is later; its release has been delayed by the MPAA, who wish to slap an R-rating on the documentary, as The Hollywood Reporter recently mentioned:

The release of a documentary about deceased new-media provocateur Andrew Breitbart that was to open Friday has been delayed one week because of a rift between the filmmakers and the MPAA, which has rated the film R due to obscene language.

The movie, called Hating Breitbart, is largely about the subject's battles against the mainstream media over the way it allegedly unfairly maligns the Tea Party movement. Clips of Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Bill Maher, Janeane Garofalo and others who call conservatives "teabaggers," "racists" and other disparaging terms are used throughout the film.

The movie originally contained several uses of the F-word, which was routinely hurled at Breitbart when he'd show up at liberal gatherings. Breitbart also uses the word a few times in the film.

Under current MPAA guidelines, if a film uses "one of the harsher sexually derived words" -- such as the F-word -- more than a certain number of times, it receives an R rating. But the MPAA sometimes has made inconsistent rulings over language.

The MPAA gave Hating Breitbart an R rating last week, much to the dismay of director Andrew Marcus and distributors Rocky Mountain Pictures, who were hoping for a PG-13 rating. Marcus then cut out the offending word nine times but left in some that he deemed important to the integrity of the film. The MPAA still rated the film R.

We'll also discuss:

How Marcus sold Breitbart on the idea of a documentary by appealing to his love of '80s rock.

How the conservative Breitbart ironically became Saul Alinsky's most brilliant disciple.

The transformation of Breitbart from backroom boffin at the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post to master showman, culminating in the legendary moment when he took the stage at the press conference for Anthony Weiner's press conference -- aka The Best. Press Conference. Ever.

(23 minutes long; 21MB file size. Want to download instead of streaming? Right click here to download this week's show to your hard drive. Or right click here to download the 7 MB lo-fi edition.

If the above Flash audio player is not be compatible with your browser, click below on the YouTube player below, or click here to be taken directly to YouTube, for an audio-only YouTube clip. Between one of those versions, you should find a format that plays on your system.

[embed width="300"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c8LcU9ZXBY[/embed]

For my earlier podcasts, start here and keep scrolling -- and don't miss my first interview with Breitbart himself, originally recorded in late November of 2005 discussing his then-new book Hollywood Interrupted,click here.